Changes in laws and customs, which a few decades back would have been viewed with sullen distrust, are now readily accepted by the Malay chiefs, even those affecting their own strict religious laws. These as enacted by Muhammad were adjusted to meet the requirements of the past, but the Malay chiefs have so far advanced in their ideas that they are ready to admit that some of these laws may no longer be in accordance with present conditions. So by an Act passed in the Supreme Council an important rule contained in that code regulating the succession to property was modified as being opposed to modern ideas of fairness.
Before his accession, the Rajah had thoroughly gone into the question of slavery; in this matter he invited the opinions of all, and on his accession he was enabled to promulgate certain laws affecting the slaves, that met with general approval. By these laws, the slave was protected against ill-usage. He was granted civil rights, and the privilege of freeing himself by the payment of a small amount, the maximum price being fixed at about £7, an amount which could easily be earned by a few months' hard work. The transfer of slaves from one master to another could be made only in, and with the consent of the Courts. No slaves could be sold out of the country, and no fresh slaves might be imported. To quote the Sarawak Gazette of December 12, 1872:
Before the arrival of Sir James Brooke, the Illanuns and other pirates from North Borneo took yearly trips around the island, making midnight attacks on peaceful villages, killing old men and children, separating mother and child, husband and wife, and carrying away hundreds of miserable wretches to be sold into slavery in the Sulu archipelago.
In Sarawak territory, Kayans and Melanaus sacrificed slaves to propitiate evil spirits. To ensure good luck to a chief's new house, the first post was driven through the body of a young virgin. When they were afflicted with epidemics, it was the custom to sacrifice a young girl by placing her in a canoe, and allowing her to drift out to sea with the ebb tide. At the death of a chief, slaves were tied to posts near the coffin of the deceased and starved to death, in order that they might be ready to act as attendants on their master in another world.[[298]]
These and a host of other atrocities were formerly enacted here. Amongst the Malays was found slavery of a milder form. Masters and slaves were, as a rule, on amicable terms, and the latter were well treated. Where, however, there was no law, and masters held absolute power over their slaves,[[299]] ill-usage occasionally followed as a consequence; and we could fill pages with stories of cruelties practised by Malay slave-holders in olden days.
Now on our coast piracy is a thing of the past. Inland, the barbarities we have described are no longer practised by wild and superstitious tribes; and although slavery is tolerated amongst the Malays, it is in such a mild form that the word is a misnomer.
The Government protects the bondman against cruelty and ill-usage, and acknowledges his legal rights. He can now obtain justice in the Courts, and by a wise regulation of the Government he can purchase his freedom at a fixed moderate price, so that should he find his bondage irksome, he has an opportunity of freeing himself by energy and hard work.
The result is that the number of slaves in the territory is steadily decreasing. Some of the Malays have been known to emancipate their slaves at their death. Those who are now nominally slaves are treated so well by their masters that they are probably happier and better off than they would be as free men.
One great cause for the reduction in the number of slaves was that, knowing their masters no longer had power to drive them, and were bound to support them, whether they worked or not, they became lazy and unprofitable to their owners, who eventually found paid labour to be far cheaper, and were only too glad to be rid of them.
These regulations gave the death-blow to slavery. It now practically remained to the slaves themselves to choose whether they should change their condition or not; for energy on the part of a slave would enable him to procure the price of his freedom, as well as that of his wife and children, and that could no longer be arbitrarily fixed or refused by his owner; or by contracting his labour he could obtain an advance for this purpose. By degrees many availed themselves of this advantage, though others preferred to remain in a state of dependency. They were well provided for, there was no necessity to work too hard, and proper treatment was secured to them. Thus it came to pass that many owners lost their diligent slaves, and were left with the lazy and useless ones, who became an expensive nuisance. Their wives and children, however, remained slaves, as did those of men too infirm to work, but of these, too, boys freed themselves as they grew up, and girls by contracting marriages with freemen, and these could free their parents. But the Rajah was desirous of abolishing an institution that, though it was becoming one in name only, still remained a blot upon the country, and in this he had the support of the Malay chiefs, which many showed in a practical manner by publicly and unconditionally manumitting all their slaves. Having before prepared the minds of the people for the great social change he wished to effect by bringing before the members of the General Council a proposal to abolish slavery, in 1883 he brought forward a bill for the gradual manumission of the slaves during the next five years, and for the abolition of slavery at the end of that period. But it became unnecessary to proceed to an enactment, for in 1886 domestic slavery had practically become a thing of the past, and at a meeting of the Council in that year the Rajah withdrew the bill.